Making His Mark With Mazes

You have to use your brain to appreciate the art of David Anson Russo.

A simple glance is likely to evoke some admiration for the design and style of his intricate and stimulating creations.

But to truly appreciate them, you must get involved. Russo wants to take you through a winding, twisting maze of decision-making guaranteed to both stimulate and boggle your mind. His art is not complete without your participation.

Part inventor, part artist, Russo calls himself the mazemaster. In the past several years he has created 400 challenging mazes, fulfilling a lifelong desire to take people on a journey that they have never traveled before.

"If you look at the scientist as someone who brings the world to a new place and is constantly questing to find the answer, to find the reason, it's exactly like a maze," said Russo recently in a telephone interview from his home in Maui, Hawaii. "It's a quest, whether it be in the soul or the Petrie dish."

Russo's mazes are included in "It's All in Your Head," an exhibit about the brain that opens Friday at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. One of Russo's mazes, created specifically for the exhibit, is shaped like a brain and delineates its various sections.

The New York native will appear at the museum Friday and Saturday to create gigantic mazes that he will challenge visitors to solve in less time than it takes him to draw them.

Russo believes that all people are born with the mental tools to solve his mazes, but that many will give up before they have finished.

"In our culture, we don't have the persistence and patience to go and start and finish something. We want instant gratification and I use that psychologically in the mazes. I'll put the trail right in front of you and you never see it," he said.

"I'll take a trail that leads to the end and make an offshoot that goes backwards. Your mind wants to go forward because you want to go through the maze to the end. You may keep going over it and not see the other offshoot because it is going backwards in your mind and you don't want to go backwards."

Mazes, like illusions, challenge the learned beliefs of your brain. They can deceive and distort. Attempting to solve them can sharpen your mind.

Roberta Cooke, a psychiatrist and coordinator of the exhibit, said some people will be better than others at working the mazes and it's not just because they have more patience or intelligence. People, she said, have different kinds of intelligence, and the exhibit is designed to help people discover their own unique qualities.

Most people, however, share at least one trait, said Russo. They cannot resist the challenge of the mazes.

He recalled a time when he created a giant maze on the sand.

"People could not walk past that maze without trying to do it," he said.

A voracious researcher, Russo has gone well beyond creating interactive art. His mazes are representative of a philosophy of life.

Many of Russo's mazes invoke the designs and symbols of eastern cultures, inspired by ancient Mayan, Hindu, Egyptian and Celtic art.

"I bring people into new cultures from all over the world. I'll study a culture and study their art and try to understand a little bit about the people and develop a maze in the kind of flavor of that culture," he said. "As you go through, you don't just go through a maze, you go through a journey and you come upon different things."

Russo explains that mazes and their cousin, labyrinths, have a long history in human civilization. The most famous labyrinth is the legendary one at Crete, home to the fearful Minotaur.

According to Russo, a "labyrinth is something that frees you. A maze is something that binds you. There are trails that lead to dead ends, false paths and loops that lead you back to the same place. It's there to try to make you not get through."

Russo sees his mazes as something of a chess game without a visible opponent.

"Since I cannot be there to counter your every move, I have filled these mazes with tricky twists and turns, whirlpools and blind alleys to confuse you. You are not only playing the maze, you are playing my mind. And if I make you give up, I win."

Russo worked as a free-lance illustrator for 15 years before seizing upon the art form that has created something of a maze craze. Now, at 31, he creates his work in his island home, a spiritual place from which he can watch the whales jumping in the ocean and the mist rising off the mountains.

Russo has a contract with Fireside/Simon & Schuster to produce seven books. The "Ultimate Maze Book," published last year, is a collection of 39 colorful mazes that invoke his fascination with eastern philosophy. Also published last year was "The Great Treasure Hunt," a book that challenges children to find hidden pictures.